You are in the middle of a bad marriage
or a great affair, or you are spending
your Vegas losses in a bar. Or someone on TV
is talking about how something horrifically
unexpected could happen, and you turn down
the volume to reprimand your son for leaving
toys out that people could really hurt themselves
on. You haven’t appreciated the good things
in your life in a long time. You see someone
get hit by a car, drag themselves back up to bite
the driver and you complain about the spread
of drugs. You think you see a flash by the nuclear
power plant, but assume it was a traffic camera
nailing you for speeding. You notice an extra
star in your favorite constellation, but look away
to swat a mosquito and shrug when the stars
add up again. Every cloud you look at
resembles a mushroom. You are walking by a tree
when the birds evacuate it for the air and spin off
in the shape of an arrow pointing anywhere else
but here. A dog is barking and stops to look
at you as if you ever knew what to do next.
————
Jocko Benoit is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Real Estate Deals of the Apocalypse (Poems About Donald Trump). His poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, New Ohio Review, Rattle Poets Respond, Southern Poetry Review, Spillway and other journals. He used to work as a cardboard box durability tester until the accident.